Cambridge Little League hits the reset button

When actor Brad Pitt, playing Billy Beane in the movie “Moneyball” spoke the words “adapt or die,” he was not talking about Cambridge Little League. But he could have been.

The fundamental idea of “adapt of die” is that continued survival is dependent on the ability of an individual or organization to adapt to a changing environment.

Suffering from low numbers, a lack of leadership, and the impact of the COVID-19 Cambridge Little League, chartered in 1952, was in danger of dying prior to the 2022 season.

Enter Travis Daugherty, a product of Cambridge Little League who later played for Cambridge High School before graduating in 1994 and going on to pitch for Mount Vernon Nazarene University. He has no children playing in the league and no family ties but became involved this spring.

“Everyone asks me why I want to get into this,” Daugherty said. “If it wasn’t for baseball, I wouldn’t have gone to college and played. I wouldn’t have gone to college, period. This is my way of giving back and helping out.”

While several people get involved in activities and organizations, few become president of that organization so quickly.

“Nobody wanted to be president, so I took the position,” Daugherty said. “I was told several times that if I wouldn’t have stepped up and became president, there probably wouldn’t have been Little League this year. I’m just trying to keep the league alive and moving in the right direction.”

Since that time not so long ago, Daugherty has put in hours working on the fields, soliciting sponsors, organizing signups, finding coaches and umpires, and, basically, breathing life back into Cambridge Little League.

While Daugherty embraces “old school” practices and traditions, he has also initiated change in the league by adapting some of the long-standing rules and practices to keep the league from an untimely death.

The biggest change for the 2022 season is expanding the Majors division – traditionally for 11- and 12-year-olds – to include 13-year-olds. The new Majors division will also play on a slightly larger field.

Using what many people call the adult softball diamond at the Cambridge City Park, the new division will use a 50-foot pitcher’s mound and 70-foot base-paths. This is an increase from the traditional little league distances of 46-60, but still not as long as regular 60-90 field used by high school, college, and the pros.

“It is an intermediate size field and keeps kids from going straight from little league down to the Don Coss Stadium field where every kid, even I, was afraid of the big move to the big field,” Daugherty said. “We included 13-year-olds so they would be able to play this year.”

Players also will learn to lead off bases, pitch from the stretch and some of the other nuances of the game in higher levels.

Those nuances are already being taught by Daugherty who is leading clinics for players in the league and conducting one-on-one pitching lessons.

I want to teach these kids some of the lessons I learned when I was playing,” Daugherty added. “I remember Judy Antill teaching me to pitch. She was probably my biggest influence. I just want to teach the kids like she taught me.”

Under Daugherty’s leadership, the league will be brining back some of the exciting things that have been lost over the years and adding a few new wrinkles.

Several games have already been scheduled for “under the lights” as three of the four diamonds Little League will be using have lights.

“We are bringing back some night games,” Daugherty said. “As a kid, that is what you want to do, play under the lights. We haven’t had any games under the lights for a few years.”

The Opening Day Parade will return this year as all players will parade from Primary Elementary School on Oakland Ave. to the City Park fields. The parade will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 7.

New this year, the Little Leaguers will be led in the parade by the Cambridge High School Marching Band and joined by the Cambridge High School baseball team. Daugherty encourages community members to line the parade route and cheer on the players.

Once at the fields, Jim Gibson from the Guernsey County Veterans Council will lead a color guard in presenting the colors while the H.S. band performs the National Anthem.

Little League also will be cooking chickens to sell as they have in the past.

“There is also a softball tournament going on that weekend, so the park will be rocking,” Daugherty pointed out. However, it won’t be the only day the park will be rocking.

In addition to the games, other activities are being planned. One of those is a movie night featuring iconic baseball movies like “The Sandlot” that will be shown on an inflatable screen on one of the fields.

Cambridge Little League features four divisions, starting with T-ball for five- and six-year-olds, coach pitch for the seven- and eight-year-olds, Minors for the nine- and 10-year-olds and the previously mentioned 50-70 league.

“We are up more than 30 players from last year,” Daugherty reports. “But our numbers are still down. I remember when I played years ago, we would use three fields and have six teams per division, at least. Now we have three teams in the majors, four teams in the minors.”

To combat the lack of teams, Cambridge has an agreement with the Guernsey County Little League and will be playing teams from the County, Buckeye Trail, and Shenandoah according to Daugherty.

“Everyone wants to blame travel ball, but I don’t think is so much travel ball as times have changed, “Daugherty opined. “There is more technology – video games – and then coaches in different sports want kids to stay with that sport all-year round.

“The good thing for the future of our league is we have more kids in coach pitch and t-ball than we do in majors (50-70) and minors,” Daugherty added.

The league remains affiliated with Little League International or what many would call “Williamsport-affiliated” referring to the Little League headquarters in Williamsport, Pa.

The season gets under way this week with games starting on May 2 with the first-ever 50-70 game. On May 3, there are games scheduled on all four fields being used by Little League.

Daugherty also wants to remind the community that sponsorship opportunities are available and thank the more than 30 sponsors who have already committed including Dingey’s Lawn Services for doing some landscaping and Leasure Enterprises for power washing the concession stand and dugouts.

If interested in becoming a sponsor, please call 740-255-6762 or message the league through the Cambridge Little League Facebook page.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Jeffersonian: Cambridge Little League hits the reset button in attempt to increase numbers